Unexpected Teachings
by ThePenThatWrites
Summary: On a whim, Sarutobi gives Naruto the education that lets him embrace his Uzumaki origins. Watch out, because Naruto's going to show the world that seals can accomplish anything the mind fancies.
1. Redirected Energy

Unexpected Teachings

Chapter 1: Redirected Energy

"Hey, old man! I'm bored..."

4 year old Uzumaki Naruto whined as he swung his tiny legs off the sofa in the office the Hokage, or 'Fire Shadow'. Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third Hokage, sighed for the fifth time that morning.

"Naruto," he replied with the barest amount of exasperation creeping into his voice, "there is plenty for you to do in the office."

"No there's not!" Naruto complained. "All there is in here is those papers you keep writing and mouthing bad words to at all the time! There's nothing to do!"

Sarutobi's eye twitched. He had been stuck in the office the entire day because of the influx of paperwork that sprouted up in order to handle the Kyubi Festival, a day of cheer and celebration for the citizens in the village. He would probably be stuck in his desk through the night as well. It would seem contradictory that the Honored and Esteemed Third Hokage would take such a vested interest in a simple, orphaned ward of the village, but Hiruzen Sarutobi does so because Uzumaki Naruto is both the holder of Konoha's greatest military strengths and the target of the villages hate and cruelty.

4 years ago on October 10th, the almighty and feared Kyubi no Yoko attacked the great Village Hidden in the Leaves. The Nine-Tailed Fox laid waste to all shinobi who attempted to stop it, but was successfully subdued by the then-current leader, the Fourth Hokage. A knowledgeable and powerful sealing master, the Fourth sealed away the tailed beast into an infant, losing his own life in the process. That baby grew up to become Uzumaki Naruto, who grew shouldering the hate of the villagers due the Fourth's dying wish that the child be seen as a hero for his sacrifice.

That is why Naruto was currently staying in the office in order to avoid the villagers during the Festival. Emotions tend to run high in gatherings, after all. However, Sarutobi was beginning to regret his decision to house Naruto for the night as Naruto's antics were continually driving him up the wall.

'There really is no end to his energy, huh?' Sarutobi mused as he watched Naruto bound over to the shelves on the far wall overflowing with scrolls.

"Fuu... Fuui.. Fuin-jutsu?" Naruto read aloud from a scroll he had grabbed from the wall. "What's Fuin-jutsu, old man?"

Now Sarutobi was mildly surprised. "You know how to read, Naruto?" He hadn't expected a four-year-old to know how to read.

"Of course I do!" Naruto exclaimed proudly. "I gotta know in order to order the ramen at Ichiraku's!"

"Oh? And who taught you?" Sarutobi was becoming very interested.

"Ayame at the stand, of course! She's always really nice when I go there unlike the people at the orphanage and she makes the best ramen ever and she's always really happy to see me and-"

The Third Hokage held up a hand to calm Naruto and his babbling down. "Slow down there. Couldn't hear all those words with how fast you were speaking.

Naruto shut his mouth.

"While I am not happy that you have been escaping the orphanage to eat ramen-"

Naruto blushed and fidgeted. Hiruzen smiled a little at the innocent boy.

"-but I am very impressed that you learned how to read. Most don't learn until they are five or six years old."

Now Naruto was extremely happy with the Third's praise. He hopped over to the Third's chair and asked, "So what's sealing anyways?"

Sarutobi chuckled. "Well, that is a very good question. Sealing, or Fuin-jutsu, is a lesser-practiced shinobi art that involves writing out formulas that can do different things."

Naruto was impressed. "Wow! So this is like part of what you do as those cool people who jump around and throw fireballs everywhere?"

"Exactly. But sealing isn't well-known because it doesn't have that sort-of bang and flash most shinobi today want. Fuin-jutsu and Gen-jutsu aren't used very much these days because they seem boring."

"Ehhh? But if sealing is so boring, then what's so great about it?"

"Well," Sarutobi pulled out a scroll with a seal on it from his desk. "Sealing can let you store objects inside seemingly normal places or things, like this scroll."

With a brief flare of chakra, a kunai popped out of the scroll, which astounded Naruto.

"In fact, sealing is said to be the shinobi art that can accomplish anything, just as long as the user is imaginative enough," Sarutobi said as he re-sealed the kunai and put the scroll away.

If Naruto was impressed, he was in total awe now. "That is so freakin' cool! I wanna learn how to do anything I can think of!" He exclaimed as he bounced up and down in the Third's lap. How he got there, the Third had no idea.

Sarutobi was a bit overwhelmed. "Maybe I was over-exaggerating that part of sealing. There are limitations to sealing, and even the most ardent of sealing masters couldn't break those hurdles." Naruto had visibly deflated at that, but the thought still fermented in the back of his mind. "That doesn't mean you still can't learn, Naruto. But let me warn you. Sealing is an extraordinarily difficult shinobi art to master. Konoha only has one sealing master currently, and that's not a lot compared to the nin-jutsu and tai-jutsu masters the village has. Are you sure you want to learn?"

Naruto nodded vigorously. The Third Hokage laughed a little at his enthusiasm.

"And you said there was nothing to do, Naruto?" He joked, eyes dancing with mirth. Naruto simply laughed nervously and smiled. Sarutobi got up a pulled three scrolls from his shelves. "Now these are three beginning sealing scrolls, '_The Art of Sealing, I, II, and III'_, by Jiraiya. You can take these and read them tonight and on your spare time. All I ask is that you not make actual seals, yet, because you can't access your chakra yet."

"Catra, the stuff shinobi use to do awesome things?"

"Yes, chakra, the 'stuff' we use to do 'awesome things,'" the Third answered amusedly. "It is still good to read the theory first and you can get started now." He placed the scrolls in Naruto's small hands and sat back down on his desk. "Now, why don't you start reading those so I can get back to my work? Just ask me when you don't understand any words you come across."

Naruto nodded. He climbed back onto the sofa to start on the first scroll. Before he knew it, hours had passed as he became engrossed in the elegant workings of a most esoteric shinobi art, stopping only to eat. It was sleep that finally got Naruto to stop reading what would undoubted become the driving force in his shinobi career and his life.

As Sarutobi signed proposals and drafted rebuttals well into the wee hours of the morning, he stopped to glance at Naruto, fast asleep with his arms clutched around a beginning sealig scroll. 'Just like his father,' he reminisced as he thought back to an identical blond-haired child with the same fascination and drive towards sealing.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX X

The next day, the Honored and Venerable Third Hokage walked into his office to challenge the bane of any Kage's duties: paperwork. Often times Sarutobi swore that the paperwork multiplied before his very eyes like rabbits in heat.

'Honored and Venerable my ass,' he thought sourly. 'Damn paperwork is going do me in before any halfway competent shinobi will.' Sarutobi was so far into his grumbling that he had completely ignored Naruto's attempts to catch his attention.

"...ld man? Old man! Hey!"

"...Hmm? Oh, Naruto. Why are you still here?"

"I fell asleep here after reading all this amazing stuff about sealing."

'Right. I left Naruto in the office. You really are becoming an old man, Hiruzen, if you keep forgetting about Naruto, of all things.' Sarutobi cleared his throat. "Anyways, Naruto. You should be back at the orphanage now. The caretakers there will be worried about you."

"Nah, they won't mind. They didn't care the other times I left to play," Naruto replied nonchalantly, but one could see the faintest twinge of sadness behind the ever-present grin he wore, and Sarutobi noticed this too. He eyed the short blond with a sad smile.

"Well then, Naruto. I don't suppose you'd mind to stay in here today, would you then?"

Naruto immediately perked up. "Would I?" He exclaimed. "Of course I would! Thanks so much, Gramps!" He finished his declaration with a spontaneous hug, one that Hiruzen Sarutobi, pseudo-grandfather to Naruto Uzumaki, gladly returned.

"I suppose we can both get back to our own work then, Naruto?" He asked. "Sealing seems have taken your interest quite well."

"Uh huh." Naruto nodded. "But I'm going to need some help with something."

"What is it?"

"Well, I know you're busy and all, but could you help me with my handwriting? The scroll said that good handwriting was like finishing half the work for a good seal, and that bad writing could make wrong seals that could blow up in my face, and I don't wanna have things blow up in my face cuz I really like my face and-"

Sarutobi gave Naruto a pointed look, who ceased speaking a mile-a-minute. "I'm afraid I can't help you with that, Naruto. I'm going to be busy all day with this paperwork. All bloody day long." He grumbled out the last part.

"Aw," Naruto pouted. "But come on Gramps. Can't your ninja tricks help you with this at all?"

"I'm afraid shinobi experience can't help me with this blasted paperwork, unless..." Sarutobi trailed off, reflecting back on coversations with a blond-haired Hokage who always seemed to have time off from paperwork.

_"I guess I'm just everywhere, Hiruzen! Shinobis can do that you know!" The Fourth replied cheekily to Sarutobi's pleas for the solution to paperwork. _

'Shinobis can be everywhere? I can't possibly think of anything except-' "IT WAS THAT SIMPLE?!" Sarutobi yelled out of a pure epiphany he wished he had his first year in the Hokage seat. He started to bang his head on the desk repeatedly. "Stupid, stupid, stupid..." He muttered.

Naruto giggled. "Gramps is funny when he gone bonkers."

"Kage bunshin no Jutsu," Sarutobi tiredly let out as a solid clone of his materialized with a tangible *poof* and took his seat on the desk to write his paperwork. The real Hiruzen walked over to Naruto to assist him in his sealing endeavors. "Now," he asked Naruto, composure somewhat regained, "what's this about handwriting you were talking about?"

The rest of the day was filled with good-natured laughter and studious learning as Hiruzen Sarutobi taught and directed Naruto on the basis of calligraphy, one of the keystones to one of the most inventive shinobi arts. Unknowingly, Sarutobi was guiding Naruto onto a shinobi path that would lead Naruto onto greater discoveries and pathways that would shape him to become the shinobi the legends would wax about centuries after his death.


	2. Progress

Unexpected Teachings

Chapter 2: Progress

Naruto and the Third Hokage had developed a sort of schedule over the coming weeks. Naruto would visit the Hokage's office every week to study more about seals, and Sarutobi would assist him when he needed help, since his workload was essentially non-existent now thanks to the Shadow Clone technique. Every day, Sarutobi watched as Naruto took in and began to understand more of the intricacies of sealing.

"Alright, Naruto. I'll see you next week to continue the basis of storage seals," Sarutobi said to Naruto as he left from their weekly lesson.

"Bye Gramps! See you next week!" Naruto was about to head down the hall before he found himself face-to-face with a very old and bandaged, but hardened former shinobi and now advisor to the Third Hokage, Shimura Danzo.

"Ah, Danzo," murmured Sarutobi. "I take it this isn't a social visit?"

Danzo adjusted his robes before replying, "not in the slightest." He then gave a nod to Naruto. "I was not expecting Uzumaki-san to be here, though."

Naruto gave a childish grin. "Hiya, Bandages!" Sarutobi face-palmed at his surrogate grandson's lack of formality. Danzo, however, did not react to his new name visibly besides a brief twitching in his eye, and snorted briefly.

"An unforgettable way to greet someone, I suppose," he replied dryly. "What are you doing here anyways, Uzumaki-san?"

"Imma learnin' seals from Gramps. It's really fun and I'm gonna get to do lotsa awesome things with it!"

Danzo gave a pointed look to the Hokage. Sarutobi merely chuckled nervously; so he may have kept his sessions with Naruto secret from the important government bodies advising the village. No harm done at all. Not at all.

"I see. Well, I wish you good luck in your endeavors, Uzumaki-san." Danzo made a shooing motion. "You should get along now." Naruto waved goodbye one last time to the Hokage and made his way out of the Hokage Tower. Danzo sat himself down opposite the Hokage. "You know the civilian councils will have his head once they find out the 'demon' child is training to become a shinobi?"

"I'll cross that bridge once I come to it," the Hokage replied calmly. "Besides, I was preparing for such a confrontation anyways. There are a few loopholes in the laws that can work in Naruto's favor."

"Very well. I suppose further discussion will be fruitless, anyways. But I was not here to discuss your current pet project." Danzo leaned forward and clasped his hands as if to brood. "It is more about 'that group's' movements."

Sarutobi looked up sharply. "Is that so? Was there anything alarming or urgent that we need to address?" He took care not to name names.

"So far, there has been nothing of great import or significance. They have been stockpiling arms and armor since the Kyuubi attack, but that alone can't been attributed to hostile intentions." Danzo paused. "You know that this is extraordinarily shaky ground you are treading on? Spying on this group?"

Sarutobi sighed and took out his pipe to smoke. For a few minutes there was nothing but silence as Danzo waited for Sarutobi to reply.

He laid down his pipe. "We have had our differences, and I know that I have come across as soft, but believe me-" His eyes hardened. "-I know what is necessary for the village's well-being. But you are right. Extended surveillance will only serve to make 'them' more paranoid. We will do nothing for the time being."

"But what about our current leads?" Danzo questioned. "Those could still be valuable."

"We'll look into current trails, but in no way should any shinobi, whether of leaves or roots, be associated with them."

"Very well," Danzo replied, having understood the implied message. He got up to leave. "Perhaps we can discuss more trivial matters in the future?"

Sarutobi chuckled. "Indeed. Anything to assuage this poor old man's heart."

"And yet you can still kill the most battle-hardened shinobi with a glare," Danzo deadpanned. "Good day, Hiruzen."

Sarutobi leaned back into his chair and gazed out upon the village. As he stared out into the people's peaceful meanderings, he knew with a sinking heart that such a calm would precede the storm, and there was little he could do at the moment to prevent it.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX X

Uzumaki Naruto was happy today.

Although he always had a megawatt smile on top of seemingly never-ending optimism, Uzumaki Naruto was rarely truly happy. His smile was a way to cover up the pain of loneliness and his confusion of the villagers mistreatment of him. He learned long ago that crying over his pain would only encourage those who hated him, and would never solve his problems. So he put on a smile, a mask perfected in just four years of his young life. Most shinobi would be impressed at the extent Naruto coped, but would also be disgusted at the fact that a four-year-old child had to even adopt measures only veteran shinobi haunted by their pasts would use to stay sane. Most of the shinobi never hated the blonde boy, deciding to treat him with indifference, out of respect to the Yondaime and with respect to his burden. And so Naruto continued to live one of the biggest lies anyone could fathom, because that was how he kept going day-to-day.

The few people Naruto could honestly call friends fit on his right hand. The Chef and his daughter of Ichiraku Ramen, and the Hokage. Only then did he genuinely smile, because he knew he was around people who loved him and trusted him without scorn or faked emotions. Whether Teuchi of Ichiraku Ramen or the Hokage noticed the subtle changes in his demeanor whenever he visited, they never asked about his troubles because they already knew what plagued him and accepted him all the same.

But now, the Hokage, his own self-proclaimed grandfather, was teaching him all about sealing, what he could honestly dub the greatest shinobi art ever. In his opinion, of course. And with every lesson, Naruto felt that he grew closer to accomplishing what he felt was the ultimate goal of a seal master: the ability to do anything. The Hokage said that sealing had its own limitations, but Naruto wanted to prove him wrong. If he wanted to make explosions, or create shields, or store a castle into a tiny scroll, then he was damn well going to keep trying until he could. And the fact that he had a goal to aim for let him forget the glares and hatred he experienced every day, because they were not important anymore.

That is why Uzumaki Naruto was happy today.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX X

One day, Naruto had not come for his weekly lesson for sealing. Sarutobi was understandably worried, because He knew Naruto would never miss a single sealing lesson, if the fervor with which he absorbed and read the material was anything to go by. He was tempted to just leave the matter be, since Naruto probably had good reason to skip a lesson, but personal responsibility to Naruto's privacy was outweighed by Sarutobi's responsibility to the village.

"Inu?"

A masked Shinobi with a dog's mask and gravity-defying silver hair appeared out of nowhere. "Yes, Hokage-sama?"

"Where is young Naruto currently?"

Silence greeted Sarutobi rather than a calm reassuring answer pertaining to the blonde's whereabouts.

"I take it that this silence is indicative that your squad has lost Naruto." Sarutobi stressed the 'lost' part.

"Maah, maah, it's not that we lost him perse," Inu scratched his head apologetically, "but when I was on shift, there was this really good passage in my book that I just had to read and it couldn't wait. When I looked up, Naruto wasn't where I last saw him." As Inu continued to explain, Sarutobi let out more and more killing intent until the Hokage office had felt like it had dropped several degrees.

"You, lost, him?" The Hokage growled dangerously. "You messed up one of the simplest tasks that could be assigned to you because you decided to read more of that blasted book?!" He was roaring now in Inu's face. Inu was sweating bullets now, because Sarutobi was letting out waves of killing intent and there was no way he was getting off easy at all for his mistake.

Sarutobi instantly deflated though. "Get your ANBU squad on the double. I need Naruto's location now. Don't make me have to assign Tora duty on your ass."

Inu was out of the office faster than one could chant, "log."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX X

A few hours later, and Sarutobi was close to pulling the rest of the aging hair out of his head at the absurdity of the situation. For some blasted reason, his best shinobi with unparalleled sensory and tracking abilities were unable to find one four-year-old blonde-haired boy with absolutely no shinobi training whatsoever. The situation was slowly unraveling, not only because Sarutobi was unable to find his surrogate-grandson, but also that he had somehow let Konohagakure's greatest military asset disappear. Naruto's burden was the least of his problems, but the fact remained that losing the Nine-Tailed Fox's container would be a blunder that would embarrass the village should the secret get out and cripple the village as well.

Which was why Sarutobi was currently berating the ANBU assigned to finding Naruto, because there really wasn't anything constructive he could do besides going out to find Naruto himself. He could do so, but he needed to scrutinize the paperwork being funneled through the office, even if it were being finished by shadow clones.

"Do you know how disappointed I am in all of you?" Sarutobi asked the five ANBU agents currently standing in his office. He held up a hand to silence their protests. "I don't want to hear any of your excuses, because the fact of the matter is that my best soldiers have somehow lost a four-year-old."

"But Hokage-sama-"

"Do not! Hokage-sama me right now!" He rubbed his temples. "I should demote all of you to genin and have you on Tora duty for this idiotic piece of work you've presented me."

All of the ANBU visibly cringed.

"Hokage-sama, if you could just let us explain-"

Sarutobi threw his arms into the air. "What is there to explain?" He questioned incredulously. "I think I'm still in shock because of how ridiculous this all sounds. Trained ANBU agents losing sight of a child? The extreme ease with which you should be able to find Naruto because of his abnormally large chakra reserves? The boy should be a beacon to anyone's limited sensing capabilities, for Kami's sake!"

"But you don't understand-"

"What, don't, I, understand?!" He roared, releasing enough killing intent to create a ghostly image of a demonic monkey king behind him, which caused the ANBU in the room to seriously reconsider their careers in the black-ops division and most of the civilians within range of the tower to faint from the unyielding pressure.

"Wecan'tfindhischakrasignatureatall !" Inu finally choked out. Now this new piece of information completely stopped Sarutobi in his tracks.

"That can't even be possible," Sarutobi denied. "I have specifically not instructed Naruto about chakra yet, so he shouldn't even know how to access his reserves, much less suppress his signature."

"But that's what's going on, Hokage sama, unless Uzumaki-san is dead-" Sarutobi let out more killing intent. "-but that definitely has not happened, at all! This is the only possible explanation!" An ANBU with a turtle mask frantically explained.

Sarutobi was growing frantic. "Then what is going the HELL ON-"

"Hiya, Gramps!"

Everyone one in the room froze, and turned oh-so-slowly towards the door to the office. Standing there was Naruto, holding a bag that seemed to be filled to the brim with scrolls, licking an ice-cream cone. "You guys were really funny, talking loudly and everything." Naruto perked up. "Oh, oh! I found this awesome place when I was hiding from this big bad ninja and there were a buncha scrolls on chakra and seals and other stuff. They had lots of cool information in them!"

Everyone was completely nonplussed. "Naruto," Sarutobi spoke slowly. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Since you started doing the thing that made all the civvies faint and stuff."

Sarutobi just stared at Naruto for a few minutes. After a while, Naruto started to shift uncomfortably at the extra scrutiny. "Um, Gramps? Are you okay? Did the oldness finally get to you?" Finally, the Hokage just sighed and sagged back into his chair.

"Naruto, we're going to have a talk after I ream my ANBU a new one."

Naruto cocked his head to the side in apparent confusion. "What does that mean, Gramps?"

In response, the Hokage simply started to chuckle darkly. "Oh, don't worry Naruto. You'll learn what that means when you are much, much older. but now, you need to wait outside for just a few minutes while I have a calm and orderly chat with my shinobi here."

Naruto smiled brightly. "Okay." He left the room, completely oblivious to the looks of fear and despair the ANBU had on their faces.

As soon as the door shut, intricate diagrams and symbols lit up across the entire vicinity of the room, proof of the Yondaime Hokage's sealing accomplishments during his tenure. They were the most powerful silencing seals conceived, and no one would hear the begging and howls of agony as the Sandaime delivered a bout of hellish corporal punishment to his now extremely chastened shinobi.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX X

"Naruto, you may come in now." Hiruzen had finally gotten the point across to his soldiers about neglecting their duties, mainly by beating the ever loving crap out of them, especially Inu. The Hokage grinned maliciously as he thought of Inu's punishment: one dozen Tora missions without his precious book. He was interrupted from his sadistic revery, however, by a young prepubescent voice.

"Gramps, you've been doing that evil, thinking, look thingie again for a while now..." Naruto trailed off. "Is that something old people do a lot?" Sarutobi coughed to cover his embarrassment. He was not old, damn it! He quickly adopted a stern visage.

"Naruto, do you know why I was so worried and why I was arguing with my shinobi today?"

"No. Why?"

"Because you went missing," Sarutobi stood up from his chair at his desk and kneeled next to Naruto. "I want you to promise me something in case this ever happens again."

"Huh?"

"If you ever get attacked like this again, I want you to run to the Hokage tower. I trust the people there and they will protect you."

Naruto was confused. "But who am I supposed to trust?"

Now even Sarutobi was puzzled. "What do you mean, Naruto? All the shinobi in the tower are trustworthy individuals." At that statement Naruto looked down and seemed to shrink in on himself.

"Ano, it's just that even the ninja have tried to attack me as well. So who am I suppos'ta trust now? Who wants to protect me?" Naruto stared at the Sandaime, as if begging him to give him a straight answer about his mistreatment.

Sarutobi merely sighed and called out, "Inu." Almost instantly the same silver-haired, dog-masked ANBU appeared, although looking noticeably more worse for wear. "I have a new assignment for you, one that may or may not clear you of your original punishment. Provided, that you rid yourself of unwanted distractions,-" He glared at the orange-covered book in Inu's vest pocket, somehow completely untouched during Inu's brutal beatdown, "-watch over Naruto properly, and actively defend him."

Inu stiffened. He had not been expecting to take of the one boy who reminded him of so many bad memories and deaths, most of all his late teacher. "With all due respect, Hokage-sama, as ANBU I will have no time for such a duty unless you specifically..." He trailed off, now just realizing how pointless his argument was.

"One year paid leave. A long term A-rank mission, if you will." The Hokage puffed on his pipe for a few moments. "I will still call upon you for extraordinarily pertinent assignments, and a suitable replacement can watch over Naruto in any such circumstance."

Inu sighed in defeat. "Very well, Hokage-sama. I shall begin my duties tomorrow." He was about to leave via overly-dramatic body-flicker when the Hokage called him to wait.

"Inu, when I meant paid leave, I meant _paid_ _leave_." Sarutobi's eyes twinkled. "I suggest that you introduce yourself as a reinstated Jonin to your new charge."

Inu internally lamented his misfortune and cursed the Sandaime's cunning. Very slowly and reluctantly, Inu pulled off the dog-mask to once again become Hatake Kalashi, the copycat ninja and feared A-rank shinobi. "Greetings," he intoned. One could hardly tell if there was any emotion in his voice. "I am Hatake Kakashi."

Naruto looked at his new caretaker with an annoyed but cute face. "You talk funny."

The Hokage palmed his face at Naruto's direct impressions. This was not going to go well at all with Kakashi-

"I like you!" Naruto chirped happily. Kakashi was floored by his naive declaration. In fact, he was so floored that he failed to notice that Naruto was dragging him out the office log knows where.

"Wait, where are we going-"

"Ichiraku Raaaaamen!" Naruto yelled out with childish abandon as he half led, half dragged Kakashi to the stand.

The Hokage was now laughing uproariously at the situation now. This was much better entertainment than Tora duty provided. "I will see you tomorrow Naruto! We still need to talk about what you found!" He called out to the retreating pair. He chuckled one last time and turned to his long neglected paperwork; He blanched at the enormous piles that grew in the hours he wasn't working on them.

All around the world, the four great village's respective Kages all cringed unconsciously in sympathy for another poor sap's paperwork troubles.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX X

Kakashi was confused.

He was currently sitting on a stool in a tiny ramen stand called Ichiraku's, watching in complete amazement or disgust as a four-year-old blonde jinchuriki devoured three large bowls of ramen. If his wallet had a voice, it'd be crying out in fear of its future depletions. As Naruto finally finished and let out a sigh of contentment, Kakashi figured it would be time to tell the kid what his duty would entail.

"Alright Naruto, listen." Naruto stared up at Kakashi intently, which was a surprise considering his energetic self. "I don't know what you've been thinking, but I have been assigned to protect you. That's it."

"But that's boring," Naruto whined. "You can't have fun or do anything like play ninja?"

"Playing is superfluous to the mission," Kakashi crisply replied, "so I will not be doing any of that-"

"You're boring!" Naruto pointed an accusing finger at Kakashi's masked face.

"Finishing the mission can be boring sometimes," Kakashi retorted calmly, internally wondering why he was even arguing with this kid at all.

"What's this book?" Naruto was now holding Kakashi's orange book. Kakashi blanched. How had the kid even gotten it from his vest? If the Hokage found out that Naruto got a hand on that kind of reading material...

"Naruto, give that back."

"Nu-uh."

"Naruto..." Kakashi's voice was borderline threatening now.

"Nope."

Kakashi lunged at the blonde, who jumped from his stool and ran away laughing maniacally.

"Catch me if ya' can, Cyclops!"

The rest of the day then devolved from a lunch at Ichiraku's to a humorous chase between a powerful, battle-hardened shinobi and a wet behind-the-ears jinchuriki for a piece of extremely questionable literature.

Kakashi was confused.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX X

The next day, Naruto walked into the Hokage's office. Kakashi filed in as well, albeit looking more frazzled than he was yesterday. Sarutobi was sitting in his desk, overviewing important paperwork that had been thankfully filed by his shadow clones. He looked up to witness the first day's results of Kakashi's mission.

"Kakashi! I assume yesterday was uneventful?"

Kakashi's eye twitched. "Yes, Hokage-sama. Naruto and I went to Ichiraku Ramen and then played a game of tag." He glared daggers at Naruto, but Naruto once again interrupted with childish confusion.

"But Cyclops, I thought you wanted to 'dig me an early grave' for stealing that book of yours-" The rest of Naruto's speech was tactically muffled by Kakashi's glove.

Sarutobi raised an eyebrow. "What's this about a book?"

"Ahahaha, nothing to worry yourself about at all," Kakashi replied easily, although inside he was dreading the Hokage's wrath lest he find out that Naruto had stolen _'Icha Icha Paradise'_. He was distracted, however, when Naruto wormed his way free from his grip, spitting and squirming.

"Pah! Ptoo! Your gloves taste nasty, Cyclops! There will be a retribution, I say!" Naruto quickly forgot his miniscule vendetta against the copy-ninja's gloves when he turned to the Sandaime. "What did you want to talk about again?" Both elder shinobi in the room groaned at Naruto's short attention span.

"It's related to those scrolls you found yesterday. I want to know what was in them and what you managed to learn." Sarutobi paused, wondering whether to include Kakashi in this conversation about Naruto's sealing training. He shrugged, deciding that having Kakashi bear the brunt of one of Naruto's future seals was totally worth the potential hilarity in the end. "You can wait outside, Kakashi." The masked shinobi left the office quickly, but seemed to linger at the door before he departed.

"Now then, what exactly do I need to watch out for now?" Sarutobi smiled good-naturedly.

If there was anything Naruto could be even more excited about, it would be seals and anything pertaining to shinobi. "Ooh, ooh! I found this scroll that told me all about chakra and what I have to do to unlock it! It wasn't that hard and the the guy that told me to imagine my chakra as a flame was totally wrong because it was like my chakra was a gigantic firestorm and it was really easy to pull out so I started reading another section about suppressing chakra and it was really hard but I figured out how to do it and it was really cool because all the ninja didn't notice me like the ones with the masks and-"

If there was anything Sarutobi could make a bad call on, it would be letting Naruto talk about seals and anything pertaining to shinobi. "You are rambling again, Naruto. Talking is too fast. It hurts this old man's brain." Naruto giggled a bit but quieted down. While Sarutobi would have been a little annoyed at admitting his age, he was far too astounded at Naruto's progress with chakra. "You're saying that you managed to learn how to suppress your signature in a matter of hours? I can believe you that you could access your chakra that quickly because you have large reserves for your age, but suppressing it?"

"Hey, I hid from those masked guys long enough, didn't I?" Naruto pouted a bit at this. "Don't ya believe me, Gramps?"

The Hokage held up his hand to placate the blonde. "It's not that I don't believe you, but genin students learn to suppress their chakra after graduating from the academy. You must be a natural with manipulating chakra, it seems." As he said this, he watched Naruto bubbled with happiness at the praise, which spoke volumes of how little positive reinforcement he received from others in his life. "In fact, why don't you show me now? I am a decent sensor, so I can tell if you are doing anything wrong."

Naruto nodded furiously. He put his hands in the ram seal and closed his eyes. Soon, in Sarutobi's limited sensory capabilities, Naruto's signature vanished. Or at least it had grown so small that the Hokage could no longer detect it. To hear it second-hand and from word of mouth was incredulous, but to see it with his eyes struck Sarutobi speechless. Naruto was breaking all conventional shinobi limitations, it seemed.

"Naruto, just how are you doing that? Your chakra levels are that of a high-level genin, which are huge for your age. How on earth did you manage this?"

"Well," Naruto scratched his head sheepishly, "I tried to follow the instructions the scroll had, which were 'imagine compressing your chakra into an infinitesimally small ball,' but that was waaaaay too hard. So I made my own instructions!" He seemed especially proud of his ingenuity.

Sarutobi gaped.

"What?" questioned Naruto. "I tried to imagine my chakra to become nothing, 'cause I figure if chakra can form fire, earth, water, wind, and lightning, I can make it seem like it doesn't exist."

Sarutobi still couldn't pull his jaw back up.

Naruto shrugged, chalking it up to that sort of old person thing everyone went through eventually. So he sat down on the plush couch in the office, took out a scroll, and started reading through it, humming a nonsensical tune.

It would be a while until the Hokage's brain restarted, and when it did, would promptly crash again at the sheer absurdity of Naruto's burgeoning development and imagination.

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Next week's sealing lesson was going to be interesting, to say the least. Sarutobi had finally calmed his mind down from the debacle last week and was prepared for anything the blonde boy could dish out to him. It wasn't like Naruto was going to suddenly know how to duel with swords, or summon animals. He was prepared for anything.

To be honest, the Sandaime was a little scared of what Naruto might do next. His actions were completely random, and the way he was picking up on shinobi teachings was astronomically fast. Naruto may have had his mother's personality, but he had definitely inherited his father's ingenious mind to an excessive degree. He was lying to himself if he said he was prepared for whatever Naruto had planned up: He was downright terrified.

Then Naruto entered the office with a loud "Hey, old man!" Sarutobi noticed that the child was carrying a rock and paper along with his new bag of scrolls, which puzzled him immensely.

"Naruto, what are you doing with that rock?"

Naruto didn't answer immediately. He tossed the rock up and down, which was about the size of a small shuriken. It seemed to serve no particular purpose besides a rather drab paperweight. He stopped, put the rock down, and laid a sheet of paper on the floor. He then proceeded to paint a simple design on the sheet.

Sarutobi was still wondering where this was all going. 'Surely Naruto isn't trying to make a seal, is he? I shouldn't be that worried though. It's not like he knows how to... Use... Chakra?' Sarutobi panicked slightly. "Wait, Naruto-"

But the blonde had finished drawing up the seal and had placed the rock on top of it. "Fuin!" He exclaimed excitedly.

There was a *poof*, followed by a large plume of smoke. The Hokage was really panicking now because he couldn't see if the seal had gone right or not. Eventually, the smoke cleared to reveal a sooty yet ecstatic Naruto and a seal paper which apparently had sealed the rock properly. At first, the Hokage felt relief that his pseudo-grandson was unharmed. But that relief rapidly evaporated into anger.

"Naruto."

The blonde stopped celebrating to look up at the Sandaime. He stood back a little in fear at the thunderous visage directed at him.

Sarutobi asked in a calm tone, "What exactly did I tell you that you could not do without my express supervision?" One could feel the fury in his voice.

Naruto was short for his age, but he felt even tinier when faced with such imposing rage. "Not, not to make seals without you?" He asked quietly.

"Exactly. And what made you think that you could safely make proper seals?"

"I, I-" Naruto was close to tears now.

"You just accessed your chakra last week. What practice did you put into that seal?"

"But, but-"

"How could you betray my trust like that?"

That was the tipping point. Naruto just started bawling his eyes out and babbling incoherently. Now Sarutobi just felt terrible. He had only wanted to reprimand the boy, but seemed to have gone too far with the 'trust' jab. He sighed sadly. He needed to reserve the 'Angry Hokage' act for less sensitive matters.

Naruto was wailing now. "I jus- I jus-" he hiccuped. "I jus- just wa-wanted to s-show you that I wa-wasn't-" he continued to cry.

"What, Naruto?" asked Sarutobi, anger all but forgotten. "Tell me."

"That I wasn't a waste of time! That I wasn't useless or a failure! I would never betray you! I just wanted to prove that to you!" Naruto finally collapsed, sobbing uncontrollably.

Sarutobi slowly kneeled down and scooped Naruto up into a hug. How long the two stayed there, the Sandaime comforting an inconsolable jinchuriki, they didn't know. Finally, Sarutobi decided it was time to explain himself. "Naruto..." He trailed off. There was a sniffle. "Do you know why I was angry?" A shake of the head answered him. "You could have killed yourself. You would have made a lot of people sad if you left this world so early."

Naruto gave a watery chuckle. "Who cares for me? Everyone ha-hates me." He couldn't go on.

"You are dead wrong, Naruto," Sarutobi spoke firmly. "They may be few, but there are people who care about you." He drew in a shaky breath. "I care about you."

Wide, incredulous blue eyes met warm, aged brown ones. "Really?"

"That is what family does: we care and provide love for one another, always."

Naruto sniffed and rubbed his eyes furiously. "I know I call you 'Gramps,' but you're not really my grampa. This is kinda takin' it too far."

"Family do not have to be tied by blood, little Mago*," The old man replied kindly. That finally broke Naruto's last shred of self-control and tears fell from his eyes again, but these were tears of joy. The blonde boy wrapped his arms around Hiruzen as the two shared their moment as grandson and grandfather. "I love you, Naruto," Hiruzen whispered.

"A-and I love you too."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX X

The two finally broke apart, finally reconciled. Sarutobi was content, having reassured Naruto of his importance to the people who loved him. "Naruto, I know that I was angry about your sudden sealing practice, but can we go over what you just made? If you made any mistakes, now would be the best time to fix them." An eager nod answered him, and both Naruto and the Hokage made their way to the storage seal left on the ground. Sarutobi gave a quick once over of the whole structure.

"You have the basic formula set up that define the seal's main purpose: to store," he gestured to the circle of characters that would have been utter gibberish to the untrained eye. "and you have the 'intent' written in the center." At this he pointed to the large kanji written in the center of the circle that meant 'storage.' But now Sarutobi paused. There were aberrations along the formula. Whether they were errors of calligraphy or elsewise, he couldn't discern their purpose in a simple sealing tag.

"Why do I see these lines outside of the formula?"

Naruto smiled slightly. "Ah, you see, you told me before that you didn't want me to make seals without you watching, so I thought that something bad would happen if I wrote the seal wrong.." He pointed to the 'aberrations,' as Sarutobi coined them. "I wrote 'Earth' kanji along the sides of the main formula to supplement the seal. I figured that since 'Earth' is stable and solid, it would prevent the seal from blowing up in my face." Naruto made an annoyed face. "I guess too many of them made the seal use chakra really..." a pause. "Badly? Not very well?"

"Inefficiently," corrected the Hokage. "I'm guessing that so many 'Earth' symbols resulted in a structure too stiff for chakra to flow properly through it." He gave a thoughtful look at the seal. "Perhaps representations for water, instead? Water is a notoriously stable liquid, but also very fluid and adaptable. It would solve that smoke issue." Naruto listened intently, as criticism made for learning as well.

"I am still a little angry that you even went ahead with this." Naruto drooped a little. Sarutobi smiled. 'Still an innocent child,' he thought. He went on. "But I am very impressed with the precautions you took to stay safe. That was very smart." At that Naruto grinned happily. "Let's work with this seal now that I'm here. At least now we'll both stay safe." The Hokage knelt down to unseal the rock from Naruto's seal.

He had forgotten, however, the inefficiency of the seal. A large plume of smoke erupted from the seal and burst right into his face. When it all cleared, there was a rock, a very disgruntled, soot-covered monkey and a blonde fox roaring with laughter on the floor.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX X

Footnotes

*Mago is the phonetic japanese translation for "grandson."

A/N: Footnotes are not Author's notes! And I will never write an A/N even if a holy deity strikes me down—God dammit.


End file.
